“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.”

So says cartoonist Charles M. Schulz. Advertisers use Valentine’s Day to promote cards, chocolates, candlelight and roses–even expensive jewelry.

Today, Valentine’s Day is big business. In 2026, sales are projected to reach 29 billion.

Valentine’s day was actually named for a Christian martyr dating back to the 5th century, but according to Arnie Seipel in an essay for NPR, its origins are dark and bloody even, beginning with the wild and crazy Romans back then and their feast of Lupercalia.

During the Middle Ages, lovers expressed their emotions with handmade paper cards. In the 14th century Chaucer helped romanticize the holiday with his love quotes like “love is blind” from The Canterbury Tales and his Parlement of Foules, featuring an assembly of birds gathered to choose their mates. From the Renaissance to the Victorian Age and beyond, poets wrote sonnets extolling romantic love: Shakespeare, known especially during this season for Sonnet # 116. Later, in the Victorian Age, Elizabeth Barrett Browning penned her famous lines “How do I Love Thee? Let me count the ways” in Sonnet # 43.

Remember the candy hearts from school days? Here updated by social media.

Novelist and screenwriter Laura Esquivel wrote Like Water for Chocolate (1989), a novel that fits the season. It is a story of magical realism set in Mexico during the 1910 revolution, exploring love, tradition, and culinary passion. The plot follows Tita, forbidden to marry her love, Pedro, due to a family tradition, who instead channels her intense emotions into cooking, causing magical effects on those who eat her food.

The Conflict: Tita’s Mother, Mama Elena, forces her, Tita, to abide by a tradition in which the youngest daughter cares for her mother until death, forcing her love, Pedro, to marry her sister, Rosaura, to stay near her.

It’s an echo of the story of the sisters Rachel and Leah in the book of Genesis. In this narrative, Jacob loved the beautiful Rachel, but was tricked by their father Laban into marrying Leah—first, because it was tradition for the older to be married before the younger. It is a story of jealousy, rivalry, and in the end, divine providence, according to Genesis 29, in the Old Testament.

Recently, I found the author, Laura Esquivel, appearing on the PBS cooking show, Pati’s Mexican Table in January 2026. (Screenshots from video)

As Chef Pati and Laura visit, the author explains how cooking enhances her writing.

When the chef and author share a snack, Laura discusses how she alternates between kitchen and writing space during the day. 

She admits that cooking is a counterpoint to her writing, especially if she gets stuck, or needs inspiration as she pens a play or a novel.

Apparently, Laura Esquivel and I both turn to cooking or baking as a counterpoint to writing. Last week, cooking, which often inspires me to continue writing projects, became a crutch. Sadly, a way to procrastinate. You see, I wanted to begin compiling my poetry collection, but I couldn’t seem to find a way in . I dilly-dallied, finding excuses to delay “biting the bullet” and actually beginning. True, cooking in my kitchen didn’t replace sitting on my writing chair, but at least I did end up with a tasty dish–sustenance, something flavorful and new.

Here’s how I began in my kitchen.

I tuned in to Vivian Howard’s PBS show, with a demo of recipe, slaw with raw beets.

I like Chef Vivian Howard’s show because she is funny and frequently includes snafus as she cooks. Making a recipe, she often makes a mess on the counter as she mixes ingredients. Last week, she ate a mouthful of hot oatmeal with apples before it cooled. She started laughing at first, but then gasped as she ran to the sink because she scorched her mouth. (The producers cut to a “Technical Difficulties” sign.)

She is like Julia Child in that way. Remember the flopped chicken on the floor? Yet, along with Julia Child and Anthony Bourdain, Vivian Howard is the only other chef to win the coveted Peabody Award.

I assembled the Ingredients for Chef Howard’s Slaw Recipe

Below is the mixture, before I stirred the topping of apples, beets, scallions, with mayonnaise, sour cream, sugar, cider vinegar, orange zest, and ginger with fresh mint on top.

The recipe calls for grated raw sweet potato, but I baked large sweet potatoes separately and used the mixture above as a topping. Baking was a good excuse to crank up my oven in cold weather.

Back to Mexican author Laura Esquivel and me . . .

Laura Esquivel and I both turn to cooking or baking as a counterpoint to writing. Last week, cooking, which often inspires me to continue writing projects, became a crutch. Sadly, you see, I was procrastinating.

Over the years, I have been writing haiku as I feel inspired. Other authors, have challenged me to try other poetic forms like tanka and shadorma. Indeed, I have wanted to begin compiling my poetry collection, but I couldn’t seem to find a way in. I kept finding excuses to delay “biting the bullet” and actually beginning. Obviously cooking in my kitchen didn’t replace sitting on my writing chair, but I did end up with a tasty dish–sustenance, plus something flavorful and new, inspired by Chef Vivian Howard, above.

Fits and Starts: An Update on My Process on My Poetry Book

Last Friday, I took a walk in our neighborhood’s preserve. Lo, and behold, the motion of my arms and legs picking my way among the magnolias and pines on the trail got my brain to start churning out an outline. Just as I hoped. True, the outline is simple and basic, but it’s getting me beyond the “stuck” feeling.

I even worked on a title. Here are two: Haiku that Hug the Heart  

 Poems from Nature, Humans, and Time & Memory

Not liking either of them.

I could use some help here. Any ideas?

Do you alternate between one activity and another as you go through your day?

If you are a writer, what serves as a counterpoint to your work with words?

Other comments welcome too, Thank you!